Without doing any research I am going to call you on that one. All catridges are subject to close specifications for pressure. This is to ensure standards for any ammo that can be put into a given chamber. Most civilian firearms started out as military weapons in their initial release. The pressures for those loads have been well documented and many handloaders exceed the "factory" pressures also. Any modern firearm has been engineered for a safety factor. I have never heard of anyone ruining a .223,.308.or a 30-06 by using military ammo. I have never heard that it is hotter then civilian ammo. My mini-14 was never made for the military but it will shoot surplus ammo just fine. Oh, it is SAAMI (Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufactures Institute, Inc) that sets the standards. It is not a gov. agency. It is cooperation in the industry to set standards for critical dimensions and pressures. In other words they also set standards for chambers dimensions and other mechanical things which can affect pressure.

e.alleg wrote:There is a difference, the military rounds have a higher pressure than the civilian rounds. With the AR-15 If you have a receiver marked 5.56 you can shoot any .223 no problem. If your receiver is marked .223 you shouldn't use 5.56 military rounds as the pressure is higher. Can you do it in a pinch? Sure, the differences are small. It's just like burning pea coal in your EFM 520. You can do it and it will be fine for a while, but you'll pay later.

The differents in a military load is they use a heavy grian bullet 69gr which you can loaded in any 5.56 or 223 Rem because there are the same round all Pressure will have to stay in same scale your powder charge & Bullet weight will determine CUP / chamber Pressure .

CUP stands for copper units of pressure. It is the old standard for measuring pressure by measuring how much a copper cylinder is compressed by a given load. Many modern cartridges are rated by PSI in the handloading manuals and are measured by electronic means. Yes, if the bullets is heavier, the load must be reduced or pressure will increase. These longer bullets are why the military had problems with the early release M-16's. They need more spin to stabilize the longer bullets and they tumbled. This caused the myths about bullets designed to curve in the body. No gun could pass the accuracy and penetration tests the military uses if the bullets tumble. They dont fly straight and they needto hit point on to penetrate. The .223 just barely passed the penetration test as it was. I have seen a couple of civilian guns that experienced these same problems. That is why a .308 has a 1:12 twist rate and a 30-06 has a 1:10 twist rate unless custom ordered. The bullets are the same diameter but the 30-06 better stabilizes heavier(longer) bullets.

Dimensionally, there are differences as well between the "NATO" designated rounds and the SAAMI designated rounds. Issues regarding throat depth have arisen, and chamber failures have occurred as a result. But there is no debate over the rough equivalence of the rounds themselves. There is also no debate over the lethality of hunting ammunition and military ammunition. Military ammo is steel cored, sometimes copper washed or jacketed. Hunting ammunition is lead cored and usually copper jacketed. It is usually "hollow point", and generally designed to "expand". Specifically prohibited under the Geneva Conventions for military use.

I'd certainly love for someone advocating "assault weapons bans" to acknowledge the issue and address it in a fact based and rational manner. Hunting and sporting ammunition is more powerful and more deadly than military ammunition. It's designed to kill quickly, where military ammunition has been designed to disable, and maybe kill.

"High powered" my behind. Smoke and mirrors, and an issue "designed" to split gun owners and generate, as the gun grabbers so eloquently put it, "a first step on the path to regulating all firearms".

"The semi-automatic weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons — anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun — can only increase that chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons." — Josh Sugarman, 1988, Violence Policy Center.

In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea... Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquility of the kind enjoyed by sister democracies such as Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the Unisted States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today. Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic -- purely symbolic -- move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.Charles KrauthammerDisarm the Citizenry, But Not Yet Washington Post, p. A191996-04-05

Even the supporters of the "assault weapons ban" knew it did nothing about crime. It wasn't about that at all.

"Banning guns is an idea whose time has come."Joseph Bidenquoted by APU.S. Senator1993-11-18

"We must get rid of all the guns."Sarah BradyPhil Donahue Show1994

"The NRA is bound and determined not to allow the Brady Bill to be enacted. And they're a fearsome opponent. They see this as `threshold' legislation. Because they realize if we get the Brady Bill to President Clinton and he signs it into law, then the door will be wide open for further gun control legislation. Of course, we hope that's true because, as you know, our campaign to enact a National Gun Policy to combat gun violence doesn't end with the Brady Bill - it just begins."Sarah BradyHCI newsletter1993-03

"I stand in support of this common sense legislation to license everyone who wishes to purchase a gun. I also believe that every new handgun sale or or transfer should be listed in a national registry, such as Chuck [Senator Schumer] is proposing."Hillary Clinton2000

"And we should -- then every community in the country could then start doing major weapon sweeps and then destroying the weapons, not selling them."Bill Clinton

I am here to tell you now, that so long as I can speak and write, none of this will come to pass. So long as I have a gun and bullets, I won't live to see the end of it, many of my friends and fellow gun owners feel the same way. Tell you something else to, and it's ugly, scary, and awful business these people trying to ban guns are up to. There'd be alot of people wouldn't live to see the end of it on both sides.

LeonMSPT wrote:I am here to tell you now, that so long as I can speak and write, none of this will come to pass. So long as I have a gun and bullets, I won't live to see the end of it, many of my friends and fellow gun owners feel the same way.

Differences between the two are small but can have a large impact on performance, safety and weapon function.

The first difference is the higher pressure level of the 5.56 NATO cartridge which runs at approximately 58,000 psi. A 223 Remington is loaded to approximately55,000 psi.

The second and most important difference between the two is the fact that a 5.56 NATO chamber has a .125” longer throat. This allows approximately one more grain of powder to be loaded into a 5.56 NATO cartridge; this is what gives it higher performance than its 223 Remington cousin.

The biggest problem with these differences is when firing a 5.56 NATO cartridge in a rifle chambered for 223 Rem. Due to the longer throat that the NATO chamber employs this combination will cause a 223 chambered weapon to run at approximately 65,000 psi or more. This is 10,000 psi higher than the 223’s normal functioning pressure of 55,000 psi. This is NOT safe and will cause primers to back out, or worse, cause harm to the operator, the rifle, or both.

The reverse of this is firing a 223 Rem cartridge in a 5.56 NATO chambered rifle. Due to the throat difference between the two chambers a 223 Rem cartridge may not work optimally in a 5.56 NATO chambered weapon. The cause of this is the lack of pressure built by a 223 Rem cartridge fired from a 5.56 NATO chamber. The 223’s 55,000 psi will not be attained and therefore velocity and performance are hurt. Problems start occurring when this combination is fired out of a 5.56 NATO chambered rifle with a 14.5” (or shorter) barrel. The lower powder charge of the 223 round coupled with the pressure drop that occurs when it is fired in a the 5.56 NATO chamber will cause the rifle to cycle improperly. NATO chambered rifles with barrels longer than 14.5” should function properly when firing 223 Rem ammunition. "

No ammo . Just got back from Dicks Sporting goods and wal mart . I was able to find 1 box of 50 rounds of .40 S&W .Thats it! Went on line with Nachez and a few others all sold out . No .270 rounds at walmart either . This sucks . I guess I will have to get the reloading press sooner than I thought .